I grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan and lived there for more than two decades and despite the years of experience I was completely unaware that there was an area of the city once known as 'Germantown'.  The neighbourhood is immediately to the east of the downtown and it was the place where immigrants first settled.  It was called Germantown because most immigrants were from the Austral-Hungarian Empire, I am guessing.  Immigrants... like Romanians?

The Germantown Area

It so happened that I was updating the article Kayville Timeline to add a mention of the 1935 Regina Riot.  In my research I was interested to read that the riot began in "Germantown" which piqued my interest.  In Wikipedia: Neighbourhoods in Regina, Saskatchewan there is a section entitled "Germantown and the East End" which does a great job of explaining the history of this area of town.  You can also learn more on the website for the Saskatchewan Council for Archives and Archivists "Regina: The Early Years 1880-1950".

Germantown, not coincidentally, has two of the first Romanian Orthodox churches in town.  St. Nicolas was the first Romanian Orthodox church built in all of North America.  This was, in the early days, an important place for Romanian immigrants.

Your Romanian ancestors might have stopped there for a while so it might be worth examining Census records for the area.

Here is some information for you if you too wanted to learn more about your ancestors and Germantown!

Germantown on a Map 

As described in the Wikipedia article the boundaries of Germantown are immediately east of the Regina downtown.  In the earliest days of the city it's dimensions were of course smaller as we will see.

 

My Ancestors in the Area

When I overlay addresses in and near to the Germantown area that I have uncovered in my researching family history it looks like the below.   It is quite evident that there was a preference for my ancestors to live in the area.  Whether they did that because of family and churches nearby or just because affordable housing was being built I can't say.

 


 Regina in the Canada Census